Working to Address Captioning Issues

By Cheryl Heppner

November 2009

Editor: We've all heard about all the captioning problems associated with the transition to digital television. But did you know that some dedicated folks are working to get these problems solved? Here's Cheryl Heppner with a discussion of some of the things going on at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Consumer Advisory Committee.

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This year I was appointed to a second term on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Consumer Advisory Committee, which meets quarterly. In response to the committee's recommendations, the FCC has established a technical working group to address the continuing problems being experienced across the country with closed captioning and video description of television programs.

This technical working group has brought together industry representatives representing various broadcast, cable, and satellite entities as well as WGBH's Larry Goldberg, Brian Markwalter of the Consumer Electronics Association and a smattering of representatives from disability organizations.

Members of the technical working group have been addressing issues through five separate subcommittees. I was appointed to two of those subcommittees. One is addressing how HDMI cables may prevent captions from passing through to televisions. The other is focused on identifying lessons learned on the source of captioning problems and dealing with unsolved mysteries that remain. Last week all of these working groups met to report on their progress.

A Database of Captioning Problems and Solutions?

One working group is looking at establishing a database on captioning problems and solutions. Consumer advocate Dana Mulvany is one of the individuals who have pointed out that when problems are experienced and solutions are found the information is not getting shared. There is no central stream of information. This database could catalog all the issues.

New Rules Coming for the Captioning Complaint Process

Since 2006, 100% of all new programming should be captioned. The only captioning that is exempt is some Spanish-language captioning.

The FCC adopted new rules for reporting captioning complaints a year ago in November 2008, but these rules have not become effective yet. They were held up while the Office of Management and Budget reviewed them.

Here are some things we can expect when the new system is launched:

- A complaint can be filed with either your provider or the FCC.

- A response to the complaint must be sent within 30 days.

- The FCC will have form asking for more information from viewers to better target the captioning problem.

- TV stations, cable providers and satellite providers must place information on their websites giving contact information - phone, fax, mailing address, e-mail address -- for the individual responsible for responding.

- Staff must be knowledgeable and able to address complaints

The FCC itself is working on a massive consumer-friendly database for its website with information about 12,000 video programming distributors. An attempt is being made to get this done as quickly as possible. The biggest advantage will be the search feature where you can search for the contact information by a stations call sign (e.g. WUSA, WETA) and other methods.

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